A typical acoustic guitar has a hollow body connected to a neck. The hollow body has a soundboard with a soundhole, a backboard spaced from the soundboard, and a shaped sidewall which connects between the soundboard and backboard. Typically, these components are constructed of choice pieces of wood in order to produce instruments of superior quality.
The typical manufacturing process of the hollow body portion of a wooden acoustic guitar, includes the preparation of a sidewall from two separate, identical elongate piece of wood. The elongate pieces of wood are subjected to heat treatment and are reshaped so that they provide a particular contour when the two sidewall pieces are mated and secured together with wood glue in an opposed relation. A frontblock, a rearblock, a pair of ribbon linings, a soundboard and a backboard are each attached to the sidewall with wood glue and clamped to the sidewall until the glue is permitted to set. The exterior surface of the wooden hollow guitar body is then subjected to numerous finishing steps to protect the wood and provide it with a wanted appearance. The neck and strings are attached to complete the manufacturing process of the acoustic guitar.
Recently, acoustic guitar bodies have been manufactured from high pressure laminate materials. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,874 issued to Witchel discloses an acoustic guitar constructed from relatively inexpensive, non-wooden materials. The hollow body of the guitar, including the sidewall, soundboard and baseboard, is constructed of sheets of synthetic resin laminates, such as, melamine impregnated resins impressed over phenolic kraft layers.
Pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/111,102 filed on Jul. 6, 1998 by the assignee of the present application provides another example of a guitar body made of high pressure laminate materials. The guitars made of non-wooden laminates provide an economic alternative for the purchaser of a high quality acoustic guitar, and due to dwindling wood resources, provide an ecologically-friendly alternative to traditional solid and laminated tonewoods.
Although ecologically-friendly guitars assemblies are known, there is a need for an efficient process of manufacturing high quality, durable acoustic guitars from inexpensive high pressure laminated materials. In particular, the construction of a hollow instrument body having a high quality, durable finish should be capable of being efficiently and economically accomplished utilizing a minimum of steps. The efficient manufacturing process should further enhance the economic advantage of such ecologically-friendly musical instruments.